Characterization on E-waste processing methods / Che Muhammad Faris Che Mohd Nuran

Electronic waste or known as "E-waste" is a popular, informal name for electronic products nearing the end of their useful life or defines rejected electrical or electronic devices. Electronic waste can be identified as discarded computers, electronic office equipment, electronic for entertainment devices, cell phones, television sets and refrigerators. E-wastes are considered dangerous, as certain components of some electronic products contain materials that are hazardous, depending on their condition and density. Because of its toxic components, unsafe handling of ewaste can cause harm to the environment and human health. Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) contains many toxic hazardous compounds in addition to precious metals. Although the current focus is on the end-of-life management of e-waste operations, such as reuse, maintenance, remanufacturing, recycling and disposal, more attention is paid to the upstream reduction of e-waste generation by green design and clearer development. It is appropriate to study the peculiarities and compositions of different materials in e-waste and how to handle their recycling by green eco-friendly methods in order to avoid the toxicity of these pollutants to the living things. The objective of the review is to reduce the e-waste by looking for the method that suitable for the categories of e-waste and to look for the process that green technology without harms the environment. The framework was developed based on literature review from journals, articles other sources. For this study, there are 16 method processing that were found based on the category e-waste and four process have been chosen and identified which are pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, centrifugal separation and vacuum pyrolysis also surface passivation. Based on the analysis four processes, the results show that category 3 and 7 which are IT and telecommunication and consumer devices are the most common category e-waste among the four processes. Next, in the chemical recycling process equipment analysis, centrifugal separation and vacuum pyrolysis process has the highest amount of equipment used which is 50 but in the physical recycling process equipment analysis, surface passivation process has the highest amount of equipment used which are 67 between the four processes. Furthermore, in the chemical recovered analysis, copper (Cu) is the most items that recovered among the four processes. In the chemical used (Total Rating NFPA) by process and chemical analysis, the highest maximum value is surface passivation process which are 36 and 10. Besides that, in the temperature used analysis, centrifugal separation and vacuum pyrolysis process has the highest maximum value which is 1750oC and the lowest minimum value, -40oC than the other two processes. In the pressure used analysis, surface passivation process has the highest maximum value which is 55 MPa but the lowest minimum value is 0.02 kPa which is used in the centrifugal separation and vacuum pyrolysis process. Hence,it can be conclude that the green process among these four processes is hydrometallurgy. This is shown that the objective of this review was achieved.